


Friends

by Llwyden ferch Gyfrinach (Llwyden)



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-03-28
Updated: 2003-03-28
Packaged: 2017-10-04 09:24:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llwyden/pseuds/Llwyden%20ferch%20Gyfrinach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Logan and Kurt discover something new about the nature of their friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friends

Keen senses stretched out to the night, Logan prowled the mansion's grounds in a patrol he knew to be mostly futile. It was a habit that he couldn't seem to overcome, nor did he truly want to. When you felt the safest and the most secure, the unexpected had a tendency to blindside you. Tonight however, as most nights, _Everything seems secure. No demons, aliens, or rabid mutant-hunters about. If I don't start seeing some action soon, I think I'll snap._

He shook his head at himself, reminded himself that no action was a _good_ thing, and satisfied the habit of a lifetime for another evening. His circuit completed, he headed back for the house.

Detouring around the lake, he slowed to soak in the moonlit silence. Autumn was well begun in Salem Center, New York, and leaves drifted dun and grey in the shadows, dancing in the occasional cold gusts before resting to crunch under the feet of any less stealthy woodsman. Logan moved silently along the shore, barely a whisper betraying his passing.

Close to the shadow of a hillside, the wind shifted, bringing a familiar scent from the ruffling depths of the dying grass. Logan sniffed the air. _Thought everyone was asleep._ One year ago, he'd have been irritated and surly at the interruption of his solitude, the intrusion of another presence into his world. Still might have this evening, if the presence were almost anyone else. Loner habits died hard, too. In his own mind, the true mark of their passing was not in how easily his footsteps curved away from his previous path, but how little he minded. _When did I start wanting anyone's company?_

The white-silver moon three days from full puddled in gunmetal grass and set each blade in ebony relief. At the nearest shadow's edge rested an indistinct figure, yellow eyes like cats' pupils reflecting the shimmering lake.

With easy grace, Logan loped up the slight rise and dropped into the grass close beside Kurt. The dark-furred mutant shifted, his posture open to the companionship, but his eyes never leaving the water. Logan watched it with him for a while, letting the shifting light and trusted company mesmerize him.

After long minutes, Kurt leaned back on his arms. He spoke quietly, fitting into the night-time calm rather than disturbing it. "You saw Scott and Ororo this evening?"

Logan shook off the near-trance and nodded. "Yeah. Seems like they're getting friendly, doesn't it? Trust Summers to grab the prettiest lady around." He pushed back memories never far enough away. "What the hell — they deserve it."

"Mm." Kurt's tone agreed with him, but something else colored it, audible to Logan's keen and familiar ears.

"So?" Logan raised an eyebrow at his friend.

"Hm?" Kurt turned toward him, startled.

Logan snorted. "Somethin's bugging you, misfit. Give."

His golden eyes widened, blinked, and turned back to their contemplation of the lake. Logan waited.

Eventually, Kurt spoke again, hesitantly, feeling his way through the words. "It is fine. Good for them to find someone to share themselves with. Only...I would not have thought it of them. He still loves Jean — have you noticed?"

Logan fished a cigar out of his shirt pocket. "Hard not to." He spit the end into the grass with more force than it warranted and lit the match fiercely, pausing for a moment at the blossom of flame so near to his face. "Jeannie was somethin' else. You think he's just gonna forget her? You don't fall out of love with a lady like that."

Kurt shook his head. "No, of course not. It is more than that, however. Everything that he does, the large and the small, he does for her, I think. Even moving on — he tries to do it because she would want him to. To Scott, the entire world lives in her shadow, even now."

"Mm." They sat for a moment in thought, then Logan snorted. "'Roro ain't exactly the shadowy type." He chuckled. "I see what you mean. Lady knows the score, though — don't think she's under any illusions."

"No," Kurt agreed. He sat forward once more, arms folded about his upraised knees. His tail curled around his feet, the tip swishing back and forth through the dry grass. His dark face was still turned to the lake, but Logan could feel the yellow-eyed gaze on him. "What do you think it is like?"

Logan raised an eyebrow and blew out a smoke ring. "What what's like? Lovin' someone whose heart ain't in it? Been there before, Kurt, and not just with Jeannie. Don't think that's a problem in their case."

Kurt shook his head. "_Nein._ Not that. What is it like to love somebody so much that they are with you even after death?" His voice was awed and a little wistful.

Logan snorted. "Yer a romantic, elf. I doubt Cyke'd agree that it's such a great thing to be hurtin' that way."

"You think so?" His head rested on his hands and turned to Logan. Silver light caught an upraised eyebrow in what Logan recognized as his own look of supreme skepticism.

"Ah, who knows. Boy's probably as much of a sap as you are."

Kurt shook his head in silent laughter. "Have you ever been in love, my friend?"

Logan narrowed his eyes, but there was no accusation in the question, only curiosity. He shrugged. "Yeah, a time or two, I'm sure. Damned if I remember now. You?"

Kurt smiled reminiscently. "Once, I thought I was. It was a girl in the circus, a girl I was raised with. Her name was Jimaine. She was like a sister to me." He shook his head. "For a time I thought that perhaps I was in love with her, as well, but now...now I think that I was very young."

Logan shook his head scornfully. "Why, just 'cause yer life didn't end when you left? Not every love's gotta be some big, end-o'-the-world crap, y'know. Too much of that shit ain't healthy. Gimme a good friend any day. Lasts longer, worth more." He shot Kurt a pointed look.

Kurt smiled back ruefully. "Friends are indeed important, _ja_. And there are certain friendships I would not give up for the world — present company included, naturally." He tipped his nonexistent hat to Logan. "But," he shrugged, "there is still something in me that waits for that great love that shadows the world. And I am perfectly aware," he interrupted as Logan opened his mouth, "that I am a hopeless romantic." He grinned and raised one long finger. "But I am also a hopeful one!" Logan laughed.

Kurt gave him a shrewd look. "And you, of course, have not one romantic bone in your body. You merely spent the last years chasing someone that you had no chance with because you wanted sex, yes?"

Logan scowled and blew out another smoke ring, then grinned wickedly. "Yeah? Who says I had no chance?"

Kurt snorted, and Logan idly wondered if that habit, too, had been his originally, or if he had gotten it from Kurt.

White fangs flashed in the dark-furred face. "Admit it, my friend, you are as much a romantic as I!"

"Ha!" Logan denied, and flipped his cigar butt into the grass, crushing it out with one booted heel. "Never happen. You get these delusions much, elf?"

Kurt turned completely to kneel facing him, arms crossed. "You are! Admit it!"

Logan raised an eyebrow. "Or what?"

Kurt grinned once more. "Or I will force you to admit it." His hands flexed threateningly.

Logan shifted his weight, curling his own legs beneath him and pulling off his steel-toed boots quickly. "You an' what army?"

"I am all the army I need, _ mein beliebt Freund_. Last chance to say it — 'Kurt, I am a romantic, too'!"

"Never — do yer worst!" Logan growled in challenge.

With a gleeful yell, Kurt pounced. Logan lifted up and met his dive halfway. They crashed into each other, and the fight was on. Kurt was more flexible and agile, but Logan was almost as fast. Kurt had the advantage of reach, Logan of weight. They wrestled together, growling and shouting and laughing as the night insects and owls fell momentarily silent at the noisy intrusion.

Logan pinned Kurt; Kurt dug his feet into Logan's chest and flipped him over their heads. Kurt tripped Logan with his tail; Logan used the hold to bring Kurt down with him. In non-lethal combat, they were well-matched together.

With one last tackle, they found themselves tumbling down the hill, and managed to stop themselves just shy of where the grass ended at the shoreline.

They lay gasping for a moment, then in deference to their relative weights, Logan flipped them back half a turn until Kurt was on top. "Easy, partner," he panted, laying his head back on the ground, "Not in for a bath tonight."

Kurt laughed breathlessly, chest heaving against Logan's. "Why...blame me? You...jumped me...that time!"

"_You_," Logan poked him in the chest, "started it."

"Ah. I see." He grinned. "And you, of course, are blameless."

"'Course," Logan grinned, which was all it took to set Kurt off, and soon they were both gasping in laughter.

Kurt tried valiantly to catch his breath, head sinking to Logan's shoulder with a groan. "Don't..." he giggled, "Don't say anything. Or do anything. And stop laughing!" He chuckled a few times, then started settling back down, taking deep breaths.

"Word of honor," Logan replied gravely, stifling his own hysteria.

Kurt started up again at that. "_Du Scheiße!_ " He punched Logan's shoulder even as he fought more laughter. Logan lay back with a smug grin and ruffled Kurt's hair affectionately where it lay tangled with his own.

They lay there some time, too content to move, basking in the cool night air and warm company. The crickets had started up again by the time Kurt shifted, sliding half-off Logan and propping his head on one arm to look down at him. He shook his head affectionately, a slight smile curving his lips.

Logan smiled back. "Comfy?" He chuckled at Kurt's innocent look. "Like I said, elf, give me a good friend any day. You're measuring yourself against Jean and Scott — you ever see 'em just cut loose together and have fun?"

Kurt sighed. "No, I do not think so. Though that is as much the way the X-Men live as anything."

"Yeah? We manage."

"Yes, but _ we_," Kurt gestured between them theatrically, "are exceptional." He stuck his nose in the air for a moment, mock-arrogantly.

Logan snorted. "Yeah? Tell me somethin' I don't know."

Kurt chuckled. "Modest, too."

"Naturally," Logan answered smugly. "Now, are you gonna sit there...lie there," he corrected himself, "and tell me this ain't better than pining away for some mystical love?"

"Ah, my friend," Kurt smiled ruefully, "this is beautiful. But friends do not keep you warm at night, _ leider_."

Logan stared up at his friend and raised one eyebrow slowly. "Oh, yeah?" Reaching up, he threaded his fingers through the hair at the nape of Kurt's neck and slowly pulled the blue-furred face down toward his own. Kurt's eyes grew round as he realized what Logan intended, but he let himself be dragged down until their lips pressed together, furred warmth against beard stubble.

The kiss was chaste, merely the acknowledgment of a possibility, light pressure unmarred by passion. Their eyes half-lidded in the attempt at close focus, but neither closed them.

With a caress of Kurt's scalp, Logan dropped his hand to the softly furred neck. Kurt pulled back enough to study him, an inscrutable expression on his face. He blinked deliberately once, then again, golden eyes like camera lenses preserving Logan for posterity. Slowly, he leaned back down, one hand drifting to the side of Logan's face.

This time, their lips fit together like lock and key, easily sliding to fill all the space dividing them. Two mouths melded together, rose and indigo and warm and wet, moving to moisten every portion of flesh, stroking over and under and through, spreading to pull in pale and dark tongues, one then the other chasing back and forth in a weaving yin-yang of exploration and satisfaction.

Then air intruded, drove wedges between the parts of this intertwined being, and it separated, and then there were Kurt and Logan, and two pairs of bruised and blood-flushed lips, and they stared at each other, and moved restless hands over too-clothed backs and arms, and dove fiercely to recapture that fleeting unity with their entire bodies.

Kurt's hands dipped, then rose again along the front of Logan's shoulders, pushing at his flannel overshirt, and Logan sat up and pulled the cuffs to help, tearing his arms from the confining fabric to pry Kurt's sweater and T-shirt from his skin, rubbing the velvet fur against its grain, feeling the almost-sharp prickling with satisfaction as Kurt hissed against the sensation.

Then those hands were on his skin, giving his chest the same treatment, but his arms were too slow in lifting from the prize they'd uncovered, and his T-shirt was a tangled blindfold, and with an irritated growl he snapped one claw out and sliced it from him, tossing it into the grass.

They came together once again, and each inch of flesh exposed increased the pleasure exponentially, Logan's coarse hair and Kurt's soft pelt together scouring delicious, burning friction over sensitive nipples and abdomens, meshing together to blur the lines where their bodies ended and began, and still it was not enough, and one or both of them growled in frustration.

Logan kneaded Kurt's shoulder blades, then down each knot of his so-flexible spine until his knuckles brushed against the rough fabric of jeans. His fingers snaked lower into the notch at the small of Kurt's back and wrapped around the strong tail emerging from it, which twined around his arm in turn. His thumb stroked the twitching base for a moment, eliciting a gasp and shudder, then, impatient, he followed Kurt's waistband around to tug at the fastenings. The pull echoed at his own waist as if there were no distinction between them, and four hands pushed two pairs of jeans down hips and legs and feet, uncaring of which belonged to whom.

Then their mouths were one again, and their chests, and the rest of their bodies twined around each other, and they groaned at the too-long-delayed joining. The lush feeling of heated skin and fur and battle-honed muscles hard under the surface pushed back the cool night at the same time it brought it into sharper focus — the crisp grass and damp ground and soft moonlight were crisper and earthier and brighter, and none of it mattered except as it threw this thing into relief, this struggle that meant more and changed less than any other they had fought together.

At the fulcrum that this world spun around, their cocks, swollen almost equally purple in need, thrust together side by side, each movement cascading sparks of pleasure through them both, wiry and velvet hair waking every pore and cell of flesh to burning life, screaming over them soundlessly with each shudder and push.

The glowing intensity built to explosion, unsustainable for long, and with mutual panting cries, they tensed and erupted into the pressing cradle of heat formed by their bellies. Then every muscle turned to liquid, and they melted, gasping, into the dark grass around them.

They lay there for some time, weathered skin and dusky fur darkened further in the shadow of the tall grass, sweat cooling in the night air, the noise of panting breaths quieting, making way for the insects and skittering of leaves to be heard again.

Kurt shifted, and they both winced at the pull of chest hair already sticking together. For a moment, the thought flitted past that they might have to move.

"Shirt," Logan muttered.

Kurt glanced up and met his eyes, then lazily flicked his tail out and felt until he found the garment Logan had shredded. Another flick and it was in his hand, then unceremoniously stuffed between them to mop up what mess it could before being tossed back to the ground.

"Mm." Kurt sighed contentedly.

Logan chuckled. "Happy?"

Kurt glared at him sardonically. "Don't pretend you're not, _mein Freund_."

Logan stretched a bit. "Mm," he rumbled, less in imitation than confirmation. "Was good."

"Mm," Kurt hummed in agreement. He blinked. They glanced at each other, and the laughter was back. Kurt buried his face in Logan's neck and snickered. "Articulate, are we not?"

Logan snorted. "I'm the strong, silent type. What's your excuse?"

Kurt flipped over, using Logan's shoulder as a pillow. _ "Ach, mein Englisch ist nicht sehr gut, kennst du?"_

A short bark of laughter. "Sure, elf. I buy that." He lifted Kurt's head, resettled himself, and pushed it back again, keeping one hand in the now damp hair. "Ah, what the hell. You got anything needs to be said?"

Kurt was silent for a moment, thinking. "_Nein_. Not really. You are right; it was good. Had I known that it could be like this...." He shook his head.

"What? You woulda jumped me long ago?"

"_Natürlich._ Opportunities such as this are not to be wasted, I think." But his voice was wistful rather than flippant.

"What, no guy ever asked you before?" Logan smirked. "I'd'a thought in the circus —"

Kurt punched him in the side. "The circus is not such a den of iniquity as you would paint it! But that is not what I meant. A true friend has never asked me before."

Logan frowned. "What about that girl you thought you loved?"

"Jimaine?" Kurt smiled up at him. "Ah, _ mein Freund_, my foster mother was a fearsome creature, and I would not incur her wrath by propositioning her daughter!" He shuddered dramatically. "We never got beyond a kiss, unfortunately.

"There were two other women, but," he shrugged uncomfortably, "one, I think, wanted me only because I was young, a conquest, though I certainly did not mind at the time! The other — as it happened, all that she wanted was sex with the freak." His voice was bitter in remembrance. "After that, I always held a bit of myself separate, _verstehst?_"

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Logan tightened his arm around Kurt and continued quietly. "Hell, I can't even remember all o' the women I've been with — and I mean that literally." He blew out a sigh. "Men, too. Can't remember the last one I trusted, either. Never know when someone's gonna stick a knife in your back or turn you over to some freak wants to carve you up to see what makes you tick."

He shook himself to keep from falling into memories. "Think the last folks I trusted were Mac and Heather, and even that didn't turn out so good for a while. And they were happily married. Still are." And now his voice was the one leaking yearning into sharp pointed ears.

"There, you see?" Kurt poked him smugly in the stomach. "I said you were a romantic."

"Maybe," Logan conceded at length. "It might be nice. But I've seen too much of this world, misfit. What's nice and what's possible don't often match."

"True," Kurt nodded. "But does that mean we should not try to make it possible?"

Logan shook his head affectionately. "Too much optimism for me, elf. I'll settle for this." He waved one hand at them both. "A friend to watch my back, make me laugh, and have a good time with. You help me out, you tell me when I'm being an ass, and you're good in the sack. That'll do for me."

Somewhere in his recitation, Kurt had become still and silent. Logan waited for a reply of some sort, but none was forthcoming. "Elf?" He nudged him. "Kurt?"

Kurt drew in a deep breath. "Apologies, _mein Freund_. It is just, it suddenly occurred to me — where is the difference, then? I have said, your friendship is one I would not abandon for the world. I have risked my life for you, and you have done the same, _stimmt's_?" Logan shrugged in needless agreement. "Where does the difference lie between a friend that you love and have sex with, and a lover?" His eyes as he stared up at Logan were huge and luminescent with reflected moonlight. "How do you know if something, someone is one or the other?

Logan chuckled nervously. "Hell, don't ask me. You're the one with the thing about love, remember? I'm just fine with friends." They lay there silent and rigid, looking up at the stars, the only noise Kurt's tail rustling the grass in agitation. Logan cleared his throat. "What's it matter anyway, right?"

Kurt swallowed audibly and nodded. "_Ja._ This only means the nights _Herr Professor_ has the TV, we have something more fun to do, yes?"

"Right." Logan nodded in turn.

Kurt giggled weakly. "And it gives 'fastball special' an entirely new meaning?"

A cricket chirped in the silence.

"Ah, shit!" Logan exploded upward, tumbling Kurt to the ground, and glared sourly down at him. "Damn it, elf, why'd you have to do that? I'm never gonna be able to say it again with a straight face!" Kurt blinked innocently up at him. "You just ruined a perfectly good tactical maneuver."

Kurt flicked his tail in dismissal. "Nonsense. You will manage. Though," he grew thoughtful, "that would be one way to distract an enemy — ack!" He yelped as Logan barreled into him. Kurt squirmed, but Logan sat on his stomach, holding him down.

"I think you need to apologize, elf." Logan stretched his arms, cracked his knuckles, and flexed his fingers.

"You wouldn't."

"Wanna bet?" Logan bared his teeth and lowered his hands to Kurt's chest.

"Um..." Kurt eyed Logan's hands nervously.

"You apologizin' yet?"

"It was funny!"

Logan growled.

Kurt raised his chin defiantly. "Tell me you didn't think the same thing."

Logan shook his head. "Not good enough." His battle cry matched Kurt's yell as Logan attacked him without mercy, Kurt's flailing hands and tail all but useless as Logan tickled him into submission.

Before long, Kurt was gasping out "uncle" around hysterical laughter. They both collapsed once more into the grass, as covered in sweat and dirt as the last time. Logan generously arranged his vanquished foe in his previous position, since Kurt was still giggling and panting too hard to move. Kurt punched him once again before settling in to regain his wind.

"That was cruel," he eventually protested.

"You deserved it," Logan retorted. "Gonna take me forever to forget that."

"Why bother?" Kurt made a scornful noise. "You won't think of it in the middle of battle, and you know it."

"Probably not," Logan conceded. "And you're right — all this will make Chuck's TV night more interesting." He stroked Kurt's shoulder absently. "Hell, is there anything worth watching any nights this year?"

Kurt considered it for a moment. "Not that I can think of."

They lay back and let the night take over once again, listening to the wind as it skittered leaves over the grass and the water as it lapped gently at the lakeshore. The stars above shone bright and cold, only the moon paling them this far from the city. Kurt's tail wrapped around Logan's waist, the broad tip stroking through the hair around his navel, and the arm under Kurt's head folded over to comb through his hair and trace one pointed ear-tip.

"So," Kurt murmured drowsily, "friends?"

Logan smiled. "Friends."


End file.
